| As thou art to thyself.Such was the very armour he had onWhen he the ambitious Norway combated.So frowned he once when, in an angry parle,He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.’Tis strange. | Speaker: Horatio Background: Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo have just encountered the ghost of King Hamlet, which Horatio believes isn’t real.Horatio examines the ghosts physical features and notices that King Hamlet is wearing the same armor he wore when he fought in the battle against Norway. Shows that Ghost is most likely King Hamlet. Because Horatio is smart, they thought that if you were university educated, you had skills like being able to talk to ghosts |
| That can I.At least, the whisper goes so: our last king,Whose image even but now appeared to us,Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,Thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride,Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet(For so this side of our known world esteemed him)Did slay this Fortinbras, who by a sealed compactWell ratified by law and heraldry,Did forfeit, with his life, all those his landsWhich he stood seized of to the conqueror,Against the which a moiety competentWas gagèd by our king, which had returnedTo the inheritance of FortinbrasHad he been vanquisher, as, by the same covenantAnd carriage of the article designed,His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,Of unimprovèd mettle hot and full,Hath in the skirts of Norway here and thereSharked up a list of lawless resolutes,For food and diet, to some enterpriseThat hath a stomach in ‘t, which is no other—As it doth well appear unto our state—But to recover of us, by strong hand | Speaker: Horatio Background: This quote occurs after the ghost of the King disappears. The servants, Marcellus, Horatio, and Bernardo, are analyzing why the King has chosen to come back and what his main motives are. Horatio tells about the past story about Norway v Denmark. Aggression towards Denmark from Norway. Hamlet v Fortinbras against one another without knowing it. |
| A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.In the most high and palmy state of Rome,A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted deadDid squeak and gibber in the Roman streetsAs stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,Disasters in the sun, and the moist starUpon whose influence Neptune’s empire standsWas sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.And even the like precurse of feared events,As harbingers preceding still the fatesAnd prologue to the omen coming on,Have heaven and earth together demonstratedUnto our climatures and countrymen. | Speaker: HoratioHoratio has just seen the ghost for the first time and it disappeared. This quote is significant, because it highlights how bad things are about to come to Denmark, and the ghost of the King is the symbol for the destined/ominous fate of this country. Pathetic Fallacy. |
| Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s deathThe memory be green, and that it us befittedTo bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdomTo be contracted in one brow of woe,Yet so far hath discretion fought with natureThat we with wisest sorrow think on himTogether with remembrance of ourselves.Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state,Have we—as ’twere with a defeated joy,With an auspicious and a dropping eye,With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,In equal scale weighing delight and dole—Taken to wife. Nor have we herein barredYour better wisdoms, which have freely goneWith this affair along. For all, our thanks.Now follows that you know. Young Fortinbras,Holding a weak supposal of our worthOr thinking by our late dear brother’s deathOur state to be disjoint and out of frame,Colleaguèd with the dream of his advantage,He hath not failed to pester us with messageImporting the surrender of those landsLost by his father, with all bonds of law,To our most valiant brother. So much for himThus much the business is: we have here writTo Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras—Who, impotent and bedrid, scarcely hearsOf this his nephew’s purpose—to suppressHis further gait herein, in that the levies,The lists, and full proportions are all madeOut of his subject; and we here dispatchYou, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,For bearers of this greeting to old Norway,Giving to you no further personal powerTo business with the king more than the scopeOf these dilated articles allow. (gives them a paper)Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty. | KingThe morning after Horatio and the guardsman see the ghostSignificance: Claudius’ attempt to influence the people of Denmark to move on from mourning King Hamlet’s death reveals his true motives of gaining power and his little sentimentality towards the former king. |
| ‘Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,To give these mourning duties to your father.But you must know your father lost a father,That father lost, lost his, and the survivor boundIn filial obligation for some termTo do obsequious sorrow. But to perseverIn obstinate condolement is a courseOf impious stubbornness. ‘Tis unmanly grief.It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,An understanding simple and unschooled.For what we know must be and is as commonAs any the most vulgar thing to sense,Why should we in our peevish oppositionTake it to heart? Fie! ‘Tis a fault to heaven,A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,To reason most absurd, whose common themeIs death of fathers, and who still hath cried,From the first corse till he that died today,”This must be so.” We pray you, throw to earthThis unprevailing woe, and think of usAs of a father. For let the world take note,You are the most immediate to our throne,And with no less nobility of loveThan that which dearest father bears his sonDo I impart toward you. For your intentIn going back to school in Wittenberg,It is most retrograde to our desire.And we beseech you, bend you to remainHere in the cheer and comfort of our eye,Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son. | ClaudiusClaudius has just given permission to Laertes to return to France. Significance: Insulting masculinity for Hamlet’s father who has suddenly died is rude. Rule of three: natures course that people die is a fault against heaven, the dead, and nature. |
Hamlet Quotes Act 1
September 12, 2019